The answer, of course, is "It depends."

Tim Bunce's definition is very precise: DBI is no more and no less that he states. It will shield you from platform dependences in the host program, if you use it as intended. Also, if you use platform-specific (driver-specific) features, at least you can find those quickly when you're trying to port the system.

Of course, it can't guarantee someone won't write non-portable SQL. If you stick to a well-known standard like SQL-92, then there's a very good chance you'll be able to move your DBI-based program across different RDBMS with a minimum of fuss. However, that will also limit your ability to take advantage of platform-specific optimizations. Is the non-portability worth the gain? "It depends" on your shop, what you're doing, and so on.

As for the support question, this is probably one of the best places to get help during development, and even to troubleshoot production code. Depending on your platform, you may be able to purchase support contracts from the likes of ActiveState. (I'm presuming you mean DBI support, not RDBMS support, which is a whole 'nuther thing.) In spite of the fact that there's no single entity standing behind Perl, the support network is in fact huge. You're much more likely to get a reasonable answer here than from a vendor's tech support phone line.

In reply to Re: DBI support for system/application upgrades by VSarkiss
in thread DBI support for system/application upgrades by data67

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